Project Areas

Fishing For Litter Scotland

Fishing for Litter is one of the most innovative and successful
projects to tackle marine litter at sea, the simple initiative aims to
reduce marine litter by engaging one of the key stakeholders, the
fishing industry. It raises awareness of marine litter within the fishing
industry, local communities and with school children.

The 2017 to 2020 project's main aims are:

To increase the number of participating boats to 300

To increase the number of participating harbours around Scotland to 20

To land an additional 330 tonnes of marine litter

The project has been run in four, three year, phases since 2005. This current phase (2017-2020) has ambitious targets and these can only be reached by the enthusiastic participation of the Scottish fishermen and harbours.

Vessels

Over 200 vessels have registered to participate in the project. Whilst the majority of the litter is landed at Peterhead, Scrabster and Ullapool (the largest ports), the project engages with vessels of all sizes from right round the coastline to provide support and encourage best practice.

Tonnage of Litter Collected

Since the start of the project in 2005, more than 1,300 tonnes of marine litter has been landed. This equates to more than 3 Olympic sized swimming pools full. Much of this is plastic (88%). The current phase of the project aims to increase this total to more than 1,400 tonnes by March 2020.

1,373

Total number of tonnes of marine litter collected by Scottish member vessels

19

Harbours participating in Scotland

230

Number of vessels signed up to the scheme in Scotland

Funding

Organisations and funds that have sponsored the project to date (2008 - 2018) are shown below.

The project has secured sufficient funding to enable it to continue until March 2020. We are seeking new funding partners to enable the project to continue until March 31 2020, and beyond.